1595 Ortelius Map of Westphalia, Germany

Neutral Territory in the Wars of Religion.

This is a handsome old color example of Abraham Ortelius' map of Westphalia, now in northwestern Germany, prepared for the 1595 Latin edition of his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. It depicts the region during a period of heightened religious tension and struggles between rulers and their historically autonomous cities.

A Closer Look

The map is oriented with east at the top, covering what is now the northwestern corner of Germany. Color shading is used to distinguish territories, both religious and secular, with cities and towns, waterways, and other features labeled throughout. Emden is at the bottom-left and lies near the outlet of the Ems River into the Wadden Sea and the North Sea beyond. (Ortelius slips into Dutch by labeling this area 'Oost Frieslandt'.) Oldenburg appears on the left, Münster is at the center, and the Rhine River is at the bottom-right.

This map is somewhat unusual in that some historical information is included on the recto instead of the verso only, here explaining that the inhabitants of these lands originally called themselves Saxons, then divided into Westphalians and Ostphalians (divided by the River Weser, running through Bremen), with the Ostphalians later returning to the previous name of Saxons but the Westphalians not. The verso further discusses the topography, people, and culture of these lands.

Historical Context

Westphalia was evenly divided by the Reformation between Protestants (Lutherans) and Catholics. One especially interesting incident from the Reformation era was a briefly successful Anabaptist rebellion in Münster in 1534 that turned the city into a proto-socialist, Utopian, and Millenarian democracy before it was crushed and its leaders executed. Confessional violence was limited as powerful territorial leaders (both religious and secular, Protestant and Catholic) pragmatically worked to preserve, and even solidify, control within their own lands and to mollify religious disputes rather than expand into neighbors' territory. Thus, as with the Wars of Religion more broadly, the period witnessed changes that were independent of the religious conflict or interacted with it in complicated ways; in this case, due to the desire of princes and ecclesiastical rulers to better control their territories, the historic privileges and autonomy of cities were eroded somewhat.

Westphalia did not completely escape religious conflict; for instance, the Bohemian-Palatinate War (1618 - 1623), the opening phase of the Thirty Years' War (1618 - 1648), spilled over into Westphalia. The decisive and final battle of the Bohemian-Palatinate War was fought at Stadtlohn, here as 'Stadtloo.', near the bottom-center. Later, in large part due to Westphalia's relative neutrality in religious matters, the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War and arguably established a new system of international relations, was signed at Münster and Osnabrück.

Publication History and Census

This map was based on a 1565 manuscript map prepared by Christianus Schrot (or Sgrothen) for Spanish Habsburg King Philip II and was published by Abraham Ortelius in the 1595 Latin edition of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, of which 500 Copies were printed. The map appeared in the Theatrum between 1579 and 1609, and in its various printings is well represented in institutional collections and occasionally appears on the market. That being said, the present edition is only independently cataloged in the OCLC among the holdings of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar.

Cartographer

Abraham Ortelius (April 14, 1527 - June 28, 1598) also known as Ortels, was a cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer of Brabant, active in Antwerp. He was the creator of the first modern atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and is a seminal figure in the history of cartography. Along with Gerard Mercator and Gemma Frisius, he was a founder of the Netherlandish school of cartography. His connections with Spain - culminating in his 1575 appointment as Royal Cartographer to King Phillip II of Spain - gave him unmatched access to Spanish geographical knowledge during a crucial period of the Age of Discovery. Ortelius was born in 1527 in Antwerp. In 1547 he entered the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as an illuminator of maps. He began trading in books, prints, and maps, traveling regularly to the Frankfurt book and print fair, where in 1554 he met Mercator. He accompanied Mercator on journeys throughout France in 1560 and it was at this time, under Mercator's influence, that he appears to have chosen his career as a scientific geographer. His first published geographic work appeared in 1564, an eight-sheet cordiform world map. A handful of other maps preceded the 1570 publication of the first edition of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, which would prove to be his life work. Appearing with but 53 maps in its first edition, Ortelius' work expanded with new maps added regularly. By 1592, it had 134 maps. Many of Ortelius' maps remained the standard for nearly a century. He traveled extensively, but his genius was as a compiler, locating the best informed maps on which to base his own. His contacts throughout Europe and extending even (via the Portuguese) to the Far East were formidable. Moreover, many of his maps were based on his own scholarship, particularly his historical works. His theories of geography were particularly ahead of his time with respect to the notion of continental drift, the possibility of which he mused on as early as 1596, and which would be proven correct centuries later. In a sense his greatest achievement was his successful navigation of the religious and political violence endemic to his city throughout his adult life: The Dutch Revolt, or Eighty Years' War (1568 - 1648), fully embroiled Antwerp. Although outwardly and officially recognized as Catholic (Arias Montanus vouched for Ortelius' Catholic orthodoxy prior to his appointment as Royal Geographer), Ortelius was able to separate himself from the religious furor which characterized the war in the low countries. Ortelius showed a glimpse of himself in a letter to a friend, regarding humanist Justus Lipsius: 'I do not know whether he is an adherent of the Pope or a Calvinist, but if he has ears to hear, he will neither be one nor the other, for sins are committed on both sides'. Ortelius' own explorations of Biblical history in his maps, and the Christogram contained in his own motto, suggest him to be a religious man, but his abjuration of political religious authorities mark him as an individualist. His tombstone at St Michael's Præmonstratensian Abbey in Antwerp bears the inscription, Quietis cultor sine lite, uxore, prole. ('served quietly, without accusation, wife, and offspring.')   Further Details...

Source

Ortelius, A., Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, (Antwerp: Plantin) 1595.    

Abraham Ortelius' magnum opus, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, was the world's first regularly produced atlas, which 'set the standards for later atlases ... It was the first undertaking of its kind to reduce the best available maps to an uniform format.' (Koeman) A modestly-sized work of fifty-three maps in its first edition of May 1570, it was an immediate success: there were three further editions that year, and the work remained in print for a total of 32 editions, the last of which was 1641, well after its author's 1598 death. Ortelius added to his atlas constantly, and by 1595 the Theatrum contained 147 maps. Ortelius is renowned generally as an editor, and indeed much of the Theatrum is compiled from a variety of sources: in such cases, Ortelius was scrupulous in naming his sources. But Ortelius was also a mapmaker in his own right: many of his maps are a distillation of various sources into his own work, and there were many maps - particularly in his atlas of Biblical and ancient history Parergon - which were entirely Ortelius' work. In his role as an editor, Ortelius followed in the footsteps of Munster, whose Cosmographia was, until Ortelius, the best window on the world for the curious European reader. In terms of the artistry of his maps, Ortelius oversaw the first great flourishing of copperplate engraving in the service of cartography to occur in Northern Europe. Ortelius' work provided the model for the atlases of Mercator, Hondius, Blaeu and all their progeny in the 17th century - many of whom were to produce faithful editions of Ortelius' maps in their own productions.

Condition

Very good. Some wear and toning along centerfold, smudges and other imperfections in margin.

References

Rumsey 10001.177 (1579 Ed.). OCLC 551925247.